August 29, 2016

Landry: 5 takeaways from Week 10

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Hello, Sean Whyte. Congratulations on reaching 1,000 points in your career. I don’t always mark the milestones of kickers but I’ve got all kinds of time for the ones who are curling fans. Nice going, Sean. You dropped that last one in like it was top-four-foot, behind a centre guard. He knows what I mean. For the rest of you… it means real good.

1. Stop me if you’ve heard his one before. Penalties will kill you.

 

How on earth did the Hamilton Ticats make it close in the end? That’s a bit of a victory right there, I’d say, although what kind of victory I’m not sure. I’d already written this takeaway with the notion that the ‘Cats could have at least made it close had they been at all disciplined against the Calgary Stampeders. And that was going to be the gist of it.

That if they play a tighter game, they might be able to give the Stamps a go and that would make for a fun one at The Tim on Oct. 1. That they rallied to make it close means a Hamilton fan can argue that they’d actually have won had they been tidy. 14 penalties for 125 yards and that doesn’t even count the 39 yards gained by Brandon Banks on a punt return at an absolutely crucial moment in the game. Negated by a player lining up offside on that punt.

Can you imagine the fits discipline-preaching coaches everywhere would have had had the Ticats won this game? Well, everywhere but Hamilton. Let’s be sure we make the right takeaway here, though, when all is said and done. Part of being a great team is playing a consistently disciplined brand of football and top marks to the Stampeders for doing exactly that.

2. The Live Mic Broadcast means I have some thinking to do.

 

Cracking open microphones on quarterbacks Zach Collaros and Bo Levi Mitchell didn’t give me everything I wanted, but it did give me plenty to try and decipher. Both quarterbacks dazzled the auditory senses with the beauty of rapid fire sentences of absolute utter nonsense. Nonsense that makes perfect sense to their teammates, of course. I heard words and phrases like “gator escape,” “dancer dancer,” “cookie cookie,” and “anchor.”

“Japan,” sluggo,” “Alamo,” “ruby,” and “Carolina.” And, good Lord, did I actually hear Stampeders’ coach Dave Dickenson yell “Oprah, Oprah, Oprah” at one point? Next time they do this, I need to be armed with an “english to quarterback/quarterback to english” dictionary. Also, do they take requests? ‘Cause I’d love to hear some of the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody worked in there somewhere. “Fandango right, Scaramouche left, on Galileo. Ready? Break.”

3. Alex Bazzie can do what he bloody well pleases whenever he wants.

The Canadian Press

Alex Bazzie records one of his two sacks on Ottawa QB Trevor Harris (The Canadian Press)

Seemed that way during Thursday night’s game in Ottawa, anyway. Against the REDBLACKS the BC Lions’ defensive lineman had four tackles, three of them for losses including two quarterbacks sacks. And when he wasn’t racking up stats, he was blowing up plays by filling gaps and keeping contain, watching from very close by when teammates closed the deal. As well, he batted two intended passes out of the air in a game that might very well have been his best of the season and that’s saying something considering the type of season he’s having, leading the CFL with eight sacks.

Alex Buzzy might be more like it as the fighter jets that rattled the stadium before kick-off acted as a foreshadowing for the display the third-year Lion came up with.

4. Bell… Bell…that name seems familiar.

Canadian Press

Shakir Bell fights for yards during the Esks’ Week 10 win (The Canadian Press)

Last season, five-foot-eight dynamo Shakir Bell burst onto the scene in Edmonton when starting tailback John White went down with a season-ending Achilles injury. Bell got our attention with explosive bursts of speed and moves that were reminiscent of Pinball Clemons. He played 11 games for the Eskimos in 2015 and totalled 633 rushing yards and 264 on catch and run plays, but when White reported healthy for camp in 2016, the understudy went back to grinding it out in rehearsals and constantly reciting his lines, just in case he was ever needed.

Did he do a nice job? Holy doodle, did he ever. 138 yards on 18 carries against Saskatchewan, with four catches for 32 yards. All that pent-up energy got channelled in the right direction, providing us with a sizzling performance. Shakir Bell is still here, y’all. And he’s given the Eskimos reason to try and find a way to get him in the line-up on a regular basis.

5. Scientists need to send a probe on a journey towards the Winnipeg defensive backfield.

 

Lately, there has been some kind of swirling, cosmic force in great abundance there and it is sucking all matter into it. Football shaped matter, anyway. A lot of the activity, lately, seems to be centred around the Leggett Nebula but not exclusively so. The Fogg and Bass clusters have been active. Been a new discovery, observers say, called the Loffler Belt. Even a giant body known as Planet Cole recently left its usual orbit to suck up some debris back there on Friday night.

“Remarkable,” was all Mr. Spock said as he raised an eyebrow upon hearing that news. As humans, it is our natural desire to understand more about phenomena such as these and it is our duty to mount some kind of scientific expedition to explore further. I suggest we drop a probe into the midst of it this Sunday afternoon, when it is again expected to be active, in Regina.

And finally… One more request for a future Live Mic Broadcast game. Clip those suckers on Simoni Lawrence and Jerome Messam on Oct. 1 (Viewer discretion advised).

Fan Poll
What stood out for you more in Week 10?
The Ticats' penalty troubles
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QBs, coaches get mic'd up in #CFLWired
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Alex Bazzie's continued dominance
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The Bombers' playmaking defence
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Shakir Bell returns in a big way
Vote